1. Emergence of the Online-Merge-
Offline (OMO) Learning Wave in
the Post-COVID-19 Era
Dr. Ahmed Tlili
Smart Learning Institute of Beijing Normal University
ahmedtlili@ieee.org

2. COVID-19 in numbers
Global (August, 02nd):
1,058,824,335 affected
learners
60.5% of total enrolled
learners
106 country-wide
closures
Affected
Learners
Pre-
Primary
Primary Secondary Tertiary
China 278,436,084 46,203,190 102,268,878 84,697,553 45,266,463

3. Post COVID-19?
⚫ Teachers are now relying on hybrid learning to teach courses offline for in-person class and
online for the students who cannot come to the physical classroom.

4. How about Hybrid learning
⚫ Dividing students into offline and online classes to learn might reduce class interactivity and
efficiency, which negatively affects learning outcomes.
⚫ Due to safety policies adopted by schools and universities, such as respecting social distancing,
conducting collaborative learning activities may not be a flexible option anymore.
⚫ Researchers pointed out that more investigation should be conducted to make online learning
as authentic for students as in-person learning.

5. How about Hybrid learning
⚫ Despite the actual use of technologies in education, more research is needed to investigate
how these technologies can support teaching for pedagogical purposes.
⚫ The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has recently
launched an initiative calling for more research and debate on how knowledge and education
should be designed in a complex and uncertain world.

6. Online-Merge-Offline (OMO) Learning
⚫ OMO learning relies on hybrid
infrastructure and open educational
practices to merge online and offline (i.e.,
physical classrooms) learning spaces
together in real-time while simultaneously
seamlessly teaching students in both the
physical classroom and online. In doing so,
the learning experience is shared by the
group through the combination of two
different yet connected settings.

7. Online-Merge-Offline (OMO) Learning
⚫In OMO learning, the teacher has to design
learning activities that foster interaction between
online and offline students for better learning
outcomes. This means that, in the ideal context of
OMO learning, technology and open educational
resources not only assist the learning and teaching
processes but also foster communication and
interaction among teachers and students (i.e.,
online and offline), even though they are situated
in different learning spaces.

8. Online-Merge-Offline (OMO) Learning
Offline
learning
Online
learning
hybrid
learning
OMO
learning
Openness level
Interaction level
Flexibility level

9. ClassIn X-A smart Synchronous online
tool for OMO Learning
ClassIn X is a synchronous educational tool. It
provides interactive activities, an online database
of open educational resources, virtual breakout
rooms, and classroom management mechanisms.
These digital affordances not only ensure in-sync
access to the class, but also support real-time
interactions between all participants.

10. ClassIn X-A smart Synchronous online
tool for OMO Learning
With the multi-finger gestures like swiping up and
down with two fingers, the teacher can slide the
blackboard or courseware up and down, and when
the teacher swipes left and right with two fingers,
she can turn back and forth pages of blackboard or
courseware. She can also tap the screen with four
fingers at the same time to call for the tool tray.
After opening the courseware, the teacher can
maximize, minimize or adjust the size of the
courseware window.

11. ClassIn X-A smart Synchronous online
tool for OMO Learning

12. ClassIn X-A smart Synchronous online
tool for OMO Learning

13. ClassIn X-A smart Synchronous online
tool for OMO Learning
ClassIn X provides a repository of open
educational resources that the teacher can easily
access and use as teaching materials. The teacher
can also save the updated version of the teaching
material (e.g., the teacher’s notes) under an open
license to the cloud, which can be reused by the
students or by other teachers later on.

14. OMO Learning-Case studies from China

15. OMO Learning-Case studies from China
To make the learning process more
authentic, the teachers made use of the
interactivity feature and allowed students
(online and offline) to interact and work
with them on the different learning content
related to English and mathematics using
the smart board. This allows learner-
centered approach instead of making
students passive consumers of knowledge

16. OMO Learning-Case studies from China
In a Chinese high school ClassIn X was used to teach
English. There is an interactive board with a smart pen
for designing a learning activity in which students
from the physical classroom and students from the
online classroom simultaneously work together to
complete various English sentences (i.e., a fill-in-the-
blank type of learning activity) under the guidance of
the teacher.

17. OMO Learning-Case studies from China
To foster collaborative learning, The teacher used virtual
meeting rooms where she can automatically or manually
divide all the students (both online and offline) into
groups and assign each group to a virtual room to work
collaboratively on a specific learning task.
She then went through the virtual rooms one by one and
displayed each group’s work on the board, which all
students can see, to discuss their answers.

18. OMO Learning-Case studies from China
in one particular art class, a third grade teacher and a
fifth grade teacher collaborated on an innovative
lesson to engage children in different classrooms. First,
kids worked on their assigned drawings, a process that
was livestreamed in both spaces. With the support of
ClassIn X affordances, two teachers then pieced the
drawings together for a completed artwork.

19. OMO Learning-What teachers and
students think?
⚫ 10 teachers and 20 students voluntarily participated in a set of interviews.
⚫Based on the Pedagogy-Space-Technology (PST) framework, three questions were asked to
them:
➢RQ1. How is the learning space designed to have a successful OMO teaching and learning
experience?
➢RQ2. What are the functions of technology in the OMO teaching and learning experience?
➢RQ3. What are the perceptions of teachers and students towards pedagogy in the context
of OMO teaching and learning?

20. How is the learning space designed to have a
successful OMO teaching and learning
experience?
From these analyses of student and teacher responses, two main themes emerged relating to the
infrastructure and skills needed to manage the new learning space.

21. How is the learning space designed to have a
successful OMO teaching and learning
experience?
⚫
Infrastructure
One of the students said:
“Offline facilities give people a sense of advancement. Freely movable chairs, large screens that can be
directly projected on all sides, free-speaking classrooms, online teaching, multiple teachers, streamlined
content, and different teaching methods, are features of an OMO class. It made me feel fresh and
interested while learning a lot of knowledge.”

22. What are the functions of technology in the
OMO teaching and learning experience?
The perceived functions of technology in the OMO modality can be categorized as follows: (1) technology
for ensuring health safety, (2) technology for supporting connectivity, (3) technology for offering
flexibility, and (4) technology for facilitating communication.

23. What are the functions of technology in the
OMO teaching and learning experience?
⚫ Supporting Health and Safety
Both teachers and students indicated that OMO learning is advantageous in terms of health safety,
which is understood from the aspect of its advantage in reducing physical contact between students
and teachers and maintaining social distancing during crises and emergencies.
⚫Supporting Connectivity
Connectivity is another commonly recognized function of OMO technologies. It refers to the
expanded learning space, which allows extensive access to content knowledge and resources.
Connectivity also relates to the possibility of applying different open educational practices for better
learning outcomes. Such opportunities result from technologies embedded in the OMO, which
contains online educational resources, virtual meeting rooms, virtual discussion boards, and so on.

24. What are the functions of technology in the
OMO teaching and learning experience?
⚫ Offering Openness and Flexibility
Openness and flexibility are two of the most recognized functions of OMO technologies, which were
demonstrated in diverse forms. For instance, the students can revisit the recorded lectures online,
under an open license, to learn again at their own pace. The students can also contribute to the
teaching materials that are stored on the cloud. Flexibility and openness were also demonstrated by
extending the learning spaces and the materials used for learning.
⚫ Facilitating Communication
For both students and teachers, communication technologies are pivotal in teaching and learning.
Some students stated that the efficiency of communication was improved in the OMO modality.

25. What Are the Perceptions of Teachers and
Students towards Pedagogy in the Context of
OMO Teaching and Learning?
The findings showed that, compared with teachers, students demonstrated more positive
perceptions after using the OMO modality, whereas teachers expressed their preferences less
often.

26. Challenges faced
1. Several teachers highlighted the need for a more standardized OMO learning classroom
design; How each classroom should be designed to successfully support OMO learning.
2. Several teachers highlighted that a new set of competencies is needed to easily cope with
this new learning approach.
3. How teaching and learning materials should be designed to fit the OMO learning?

27. Conclusion

28. Publication output

29. Thank you